Remains ID'd as Texas student missing since 1997
ANGLETON, Texas --Authorities say remains found in a pasture in southeast Texas are those of a 20-year-old college student who went missing almost two decades ago.
Denton police said Monday that the remains have been identified through dental records as those of Kelli Cox, who went missing from the North Texas town of Denton in July 1997. She attended the University of North Texas.
Authorities had announced this month that imprisoned convicted kidnapper William Reece had led them to the remains in Brazoria County. The 56-year-old is already serving a 60-year sentence for kidnapping one woman.
CBS DFW reported that Cox had parked her car the day she vanished at the Denton Police Department, but couldn't get into the vehicle. She reportedly walked across the street to call her boyfriend from a gas station payphone and bought a soda, then disappeared.
Identification is also pending on remains authorities found last month with Reece's help in the search for 17-year-old Jessica Cain, also missing since 1997.
Reece hasn't been charged in the disappearances of Cain or Cox, his attorney, Anthony Osso, said last week. Reece does face first-degree murder and kidnapping charges in Oklahoma for the slaying of 19-year-old Tiffany Johnston, who was abducted from a car wash northwest of Oklahoma City in 1997.
Reece was charged in the Oklahoma City case last year after DNA linked him to Johnston, CBS DFW reported. He began cooperating with police around the same time, the station reports.
He was also previously named the prime suspect in the April 1997 abduction and killing of a 12-year-old girl in Friendswood near Houston but has not been charged.
Reece was sent to prison the next year for the May 1997 Houston-area abduction of Sandra Sapaugh, who told authorities Reece forced her at knifepoint into his truck after first feigning to help her with a flat tire. Sapaugh escaped after jumping from the truck.
Whether Reece has any information on other cases is unclear. Osso said authorities in other parts of Texas or elsewhere with similar cold cases might speak to Reece in the near future.
Asked why Reece decided to help authorities, Osso said his client realized he already faced decades more in prison and had a serious heart condition.
"He wants closure for the families involved," Osso said. "I think he's at peace with the fact that he's going to remain in prison, probably die in prison."'